Abstract
Abstract
Background
Parent reports suggest that 44–84% of children with ASD exhibit sleep disturbances that are of clinical concern. Previous studies have reported that, in children with ASD, the severity of sleep disturbances is associated with the severity of either sensory problems or aberrant behaviors, but none have performed combined analyses with measures of both sensory and aberrant behaviors symptom domains from the same children.
Methods
We examined parent reports of 237 children with ASD, 1.4–8.7 years old, using the child sleep habits questionnaire (CSHQ), sensory profile (SP), and aberrant behaviors checklist (ABC).
Results
The analyses revealed that sleep disturbances were most strongly associated with SP sensory sensitivity and ABC irritability scores. Together these scores explained 35% of the variance in total CSHQ scores. Moreover, sensory sensitivity scores moderated the association between irritability and sleep disturbances, indicating that sleep disturbances were significantly associated with irritability only in children with moderate to severe sensory sensitivities.
Conclusion
We suggest that the three symptom domains may interact and exacerbate each other such that successful intervention in one symptom domain may have positive impact on the others. Further intervention studies testing this hypothesis are highly warranted.
Funder
Israel Science Foundation
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
Cognitive Neuroscience,Neurology (clinical),Pathology and Forensic Medicine,Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health
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